Magic or Faith
by Tracy Diane Miller
Summary: On Halloween, two witches brew trouble for Gary.


Magic or Faith?  
  
Summary: A very short story based on "Halloween."  
  
Disclaimer: Early Edition characters belong to whoever created them. No  
  
copyright infringement intended. No profit is being made.  
  
Author: Tracy Diane Miller  
  
E-mail address: tdmiller82@hotmail.com  
  
  
  
Magic or Faith?  
  
The burning sensation in his eyes was unbearable; the pain dulled his  
  
senses. Then, the sounds came rushing towards him like crashing waves along  
  
a virgin shore or a bevy of unleashed Furies seeking vengeance. His body  
  
was like dead weight as he felt himself being pushed into the van, kidnapped  
  
in broad daylight by two lunatics! He knew that Halloween brought out the  
  
nuts and maybe these two were taking a childhood obsession with "Bewitched"  
  
too far, but he didn't have time for this. Children's lives were at stake.  
  
As his body lay crumbled in the back of the van, he tried desperately to  
  
focus his vision.  
  
Nothing.  
  
Darkness.  
  
He could hear their voices, though, in the front seat of the van. They were  
  
talking about refining their spell. Toby again was chiding Gwynneth about  
  
getting turkey's feet instead of chicken's feet. The sisterly squabble had  
  
reached a level that grated on his already frazzled nerves. Coupled with the  
  
burning in his eyes and the fear that he wouldn't make it in time to save  
  
the children, he knew that he needed some kind of strategy if he were going  
  
to get out of this predicament and avert disaster.  
  
He strained to see again and soon his vision cooperated, returned in a haze,  
  
cloudy, but it was back. The car weaved haphazardly through traffic. The  
  
reckless manner in which the car was being driven made him say a silent  
  
prayer that they all wouldn't be killed in a car accident before he was able  
  
to change the paper's deadly prophecy.  
  
His mind considered the options. Perhaps he could feign blindness and then  
  
overpower them once they came to take him out of the back of the van. No,  
  
that wouldn't work. For as crazy as those two were, they were still women,  
  
and he couldn't see himself overpowering women and risk hurting them.  
  
He came up with another idea. Well, maybe not an idea, but a decision. He  
  
would go along with them for as long as he could and then hopefully appeal  
  
to their sense of decency (assuming they had any) and convince them that he  
  
wasn't the warlock they were seeking.  
  
The sound of the back door opening shook him from his musings. He allowed  
  
himself to be taken out of the car and led towards the house. Gwynneth  
  
told him that he could hold on to her for support, that she wouldn't let him  
  
fall. Then she batted her eyelashes at him and flashed a coy smile;  
  
deliciously seductive, her actions seemingly emitting a pheromone that reeked  
  
of her interest in him. Toby rolled her eyes, clearly annoyed. She was  
  
definitely the no nonsense one; she was about the business at hand, not  
  
mindless flirtation. The sooner they got this warlock into the house, the  
  
sooner they could effectuate their spell and bring Elizabeth home.  
  
He was directed upstairs and told to sit in a chair. His hands were tied in  
  
back of him. He tried freeing himself, his hands did move within the  
  
constraints. But he knew that even if he did break free, they wouldn't  
  
willingly let him leave and again, he couldn't overpower them.  
  
Toby threw more ingredients into the spell pot and Gwynneth said something  
  
about the whole thing being "fun" (not the word that he would have used).  
  
The clock on the wall continued ticking at an unforgiving pace, its chime a  
  
frightening reminder that he didn't have much time to prevent the death and  
  
illness that would soon befall unsuspecting children caught up in the magic of Halloween.  
  
Toby assured him that he could go- as soon as he ate the toad. His eyes  
  
widened in disgust as she approached him with the toad, the toad's legs  
  
thrashing about defiantly as if it too refused to be resigned to its fate.  
  
He had eaten calamari before (despite initial protests about the delicacy's  
  
peculiar shape and rubbery aftertaste), but there was no way he was going to  
  
eat that frog!  
  
The clock on the wall chimed again determined not to be ignored. Seeing no  
  
way out of his dilemma, he agreed to eat the frog. Toad, he was corrected  
  
for what seemed like the one hundredth time. As his stomach churned  
  
violently in anticipation of the bizarre "meal" headed its way, Toby  
  
realized that even after thirteen stirs, the spell pot remained unaffected.  
  
That could only mean one thing. They had been tricked. He was not a  
  
warlock.  
  
Finally!  
  
He thought to himself that sanity had been restored. He expected to be  
  
freed from his captors.  
  
Wrong.  
  
If he wasn't a warlock, they would have to lock him up in the cellar  
  
tonight. Gwynneth bubbled over with enthusiasm, begging her sister to allow  
  
her to play jailer to their cute prisoner.  
  
The clock chimed again.  
  
He spied the cat. The feline's black color today had been a shock, but he  
  
learned that anything was possible when it came to this cat. Consequently,  
  
he asked for the cat's help in "proving" that he was a warlock which would  
  
enable him to be released (since the spell hadn't worked and the witches had to wait until next year). The cat obliged. As the cat jumped into  
  
Gwynneth's arms, its black color was inexplicable transformed to orange.  
  
Gwynneth's "vision" led them to the house that held the poison apples, but  
  
he was too late. The older woman informed him that she had already handed  
  
out one apple to a little boy dressed as a cowboy. He realized that the  
  
child was Henry. He hurried down the street, frantically calling Henry's  
  
name. He saw a crowd hovering around. He followed the crowd and found  
  
Henry, the boy's face tear stained as Henry revealed that Spike had taken the  
  
apple from him, taking a bite himself in the process. Spike had saved  
  
Henry's life.  
  
The vet informed them that it didn't look as if Spike would make it.  
  
Marissa, as always, clung to faith. Toby and Gwynneth showed up at the  
  
doctor's office offering apologies. He was in no mood to hear their  
  
continued nonsense about a spell to save the dog's life.  
  
But something strange happened. Life had been breathed back into Spike. The dog  
  
was going to be okay.  
  
Maybe it was faith that pulled Spike through. Maybe it was magic. Or,  
  
maybe it was a potent combination of the two. After all, sometimes the  
  
greatest magic is to continue to have faith even when things seem hopeless.  
  
A person is never too young (or too old) to learn that lesson.  
  
  
  
The End. 


End file.
